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Classical music: As superstar Itzhak Perlman turns 75, a critic assesses his virtues and shortcomings in playing both the violin and his audiences

September 6, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

Last Monday, Aug. 31, superstar violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman (below, in a photo by Yael Malka of The New York Times) turned 75.

To celebrate, Sony Classical released a boxed set of 18 CDs (below) with many performances by Perlman – solo, chamber music and concertos – recorded over many years.

On the occasion of Perlman’s birthday, critic Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim of The New York Times wrote a retrospective review of Perlman’s long career. (You can hear his most popular performance ever — with more than 6 million hits — in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

The Ear finds the opinion piece both brave and truthful, pointing out Perlman’s mastery of the Romantic repertory but also criticizing his stodgy treatment of Vivaldi and other Baroque music that has benefitted from the period-instrument movement and historically informed performance practices

Yet the essay, which also touches on ups and down of Perlman’s career, always remains respectful and appreciative even when discussing Perlman’s shortcomings.

Offering many historical details and photos as well as sample videos, the critical assessment of Perlman seems perfectly timed.

The Ear hopes you enjoy it as much as he did. Here is a link: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/26/arts/music/itzhak-perlman-violin.html

If you have heard Itzhak Perlman either on recordings or live – at the Wisconsin Union Theater, the old Civic Center or Overture Hall — let us know what you think.

The Ear wants to hear.

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Classical music: This year’s virtual Bach Around the Clock proved a 10-day success. Here is a news update with a date for 2021

August 31, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following message from artistic director and violist Marika Fischer Hoyt (below top) about this year’s virtual Bach Around the Clock and the dates for next year’s festival when amateur and professional musicians will again celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750):

Greetings! I hope this finds you well and finding ways to maintain equilibrium in these tumultuous times.

I’d like to thank you all again for making our 10-day 2020 Virtual Festival (one example is in the YouTube video at the bottom) such a success.

After the sad cancellation of our in-person festival, it was wonderful to see so many of you playing and singing Bach! It reminded me of the Dr. Seuss book; the COVID Grinch may have stolen the trappings of our festival, but we just held it anyway! (Below are members of the Suzuki Strings from a previous BATC festival.)

With the summer over, the BATC board of directors is looking ahead to next year’s festival, which will take place on Saturday, March 20, 2021. We don’t yet know what format it will take — whether in-person, virtual or some combination — but we will explore all available options.

If you have suggestions, please contact us.

Meanwhile, with so many concerts canceled, I hope you can find other ways to include music in your lives. I’ll continue posting Bach-related articles and performance links on our Facebook page.

If you have the means, please consider donating to artists and ensembles whose livelihoods have vanished for the foreseeable future.

Thank you again for being part of the BATC community, and please take care.

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Classical music: What composer or piece of music would you like to hear once the coronavirus is contained and concert halls open again?

August 15, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The news can be confusing and even contradictory about some specifics, but the general direction of reports and statistics about the coronavirus pandemic and deaths from COVID-19 is clear.

It is going to be a long haul until we safely get to go hear live music in large crowds again, just as The Ear talked about earlier this week. (Below is a photo of conductor John DeMain and the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Overture Hall.)

Here is a link to that post: https://welltempered.wordpress.com/2020/08/11/classical-music-its-clear-to-the-ear-it-will-be-at-least-another-full-year-before-music-lovers-in-the-u-s-can-safely-attend-live-concerts-what-do-you-think/

When performers finally get to play, and the concert halls finally get to open, and audiences finally get to listen in person, here is what The Ear wants to know:

What composer would you like hear?

Maybe Beethoven (below) because so much of the Beethoven Year – marking the composer’s 250th birthday this coming December – has been canceled or postponed?

Maybe Johann Sebastian Bach (below) because he just seems so basic, varied and universal?

And what specific piece of music would you like to hear?

Perhaps Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony “Choral” with its “Ode to Joy”? Or maybe the “Eroica” Symphony? Or one of the string quartets?

Perhaps the “St. Mathew Passion” or the Mass in B Minor? Maybe one or more of the cantatas?

Should the music pay homage to the suffering, loss and death – perhaps with Mozart’s “Requiem”? Or Brahms’ “A German Requiem”? Or Mahler’s “Resurrection” Symphony?

Or should the music be upbeat and joyous, like Dvorak’s “Carnival Overture” (below in the YouTube video)? Or some glittering and whirling waltzes by the Strauss family?

Is there an opera that seems especially relevant?

Would you prefer instrumental, choral or vocal music?

And what period, era or style would you prefer?

It will be great to be reacquainted with old and familiar friends. But it would also seem an ideal time to commission and perform new music.

Leave your suggestions in the Comment section with, if possible, a link to a YouTube performance to help us decide.

The Ear wants to hear.

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Classical music: The Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020 festival ends today. Here’s how to catch up on the 10 days of making Baroque music

April 7, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

If you recall, this year’s 12-hour Bach Around the Clock festival – a platform for students, amateurs and professional musicians to celebrate the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below) — was scheduled to take place at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church on Saturday, March 28.

Faced with cancellation of the annual free event because of the public health dangers posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and the need for social distancing, the organizers decided to try going virtual and hold the festival online by asking performers to send in short videos made at home.

And it worked.

“From what we have heard, it has been a very rewarding experience for both the performers who sent in videos and for the people who watched and listened to them,” says violist and BATC artistic director Marika Fischer Hoyt (below).

The cost of going virtual was not great, but it took lot of time and hard work, admits Fischer Hoyt, who says she spent between 7 and 10 hours a day to post each day’s Bach video.

It was hard especially at the beginning, she notes, when she had to learn how to use software programs, such as iMovie, to make and then upload and post the videos.

She didn’t just organize the online festival. She also performed and provided gracious introductions to the program for each day.

Lately, the videos average about 20 minutes – your Daily Minimum Requirement of Bach, as the witty Wisconsin Public Radio host Anders Yocom would say. But they were longer at the beginning when more videos were sent in. Towards the end, the festival even used some photos and audio recordings from past years to round out programs.

But the reach of the virtual festival, intended to be local, was wider than Fischer Hoyt had expected. Musicians replied and participated from Florida, Minnesota and – as you can hear today – from Costa Rica.

All the effort worked.

In one of the major victories against all the coronavirus cancellations and postponements in the Madison music scene, the Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020 brought the public beautiful Baroque music by voices, strings, keyboards and winds in cantatas, partitas, preludes and fugues, sonatas and suites.

Listening to just one a day would be a good way to spread out and savor the joy of the festival for 10 days while you self-isolate and shelter in place at home.

You can find the videos on YouTube. In the search bar, just type in Virtual Bach Around the Clock 2020, Madison, Wisconsin.

But a much easier and more organized way can be found here on the festival’s home website, which lists the videos in chronological order and links to them: https://bachclock.com/audience-listening-viewing

Try listening to them and tell us what you think about the individual videos and performances — do you have a favorite? — and about mounting the virtual festival.

And, if you like, leave a note of thanks in the Comment section.

The Ear wants to hear.

Here is Day 5:

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Bach Around the Clock 2020 goes virtual and wants your audio-video contribution. Plus TONIGHT, the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra streams its Dec. 27 concert at the UW

March 27, 2020
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ALERT: TONIGHT, March 27, at 7:30 p.m., the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra will be streaming its sold-out premiere performance (below) on Dec. 27 in the Mead Witter Foundation Concert Hall at the UW-Madison’s new Hamel Music Center. If you couldn’t get seats for the in-person performance, you can tune in for FREE tonight.

The program is: “Poet and Peasant Overture” by Suppe; the Introduction and Allegro appassionato, Op. 92, by Robert Schumann with pianist Jason Kutz; the Overture to “Orpheus in the Underworld” by Offenbach; the “Habanera” from the opera “Carmen” by Bizet and “What a movie” from the opera “Trouble in Tahiti” by Leonard Bernstein, both with mezzo-soprano Kitt Reuter-Foss; and the Violin Concerto No. 3 in B minor, Op. 61, by Saint-Saens with Rachel Barton Pine. WCO music director Andrew Sewell conducts.

For a link and portal to the streamed video, go to: https://wisconsinchamberorchestra.org/about/wisconsin-chamber-orchestra-live/

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following message from artistic director Marika Fischer Hoyt (below) about the decision to make this year’s Bach Around the Clock a virtual event with a call for community submissions:

The BATC Board of Directors shares the keen disappointment that all music lovers feel at the sudden, shocking collapse of the current concert season.

The BATC 2020 Festival was fully booked, and we had looked forward to 12 hours of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by musicians ranging from young students to adult amateurs to seasoned professionals, all to celebrate the composer’s 335th birthday.

Sadly, that was not to be.

But thinking outside of the box, the Board has decided to try something new: the BATC 2020 Virtual Festival.

We invite local musicians to submit video or audio recordings of themselves singing or playing a selection by Bach. If you’d like, you can also talk at the beginning of your recording, explaining what music by Bach (below) means to you, and why you chose this particular piece. Or feel free to write your thoughts on this subject, and we’ll include that text with your recording.

We reach out especially to those who were scheduled to perform at this year’s festival, and those who have performed with us in the past. But we are very happy to include newcomers to our BATC community as well.

Performers can click on Performers Guide for Media Submissions to find instructions for audio or video file submission.

We request that files be of musical selections 20 minutes or less. If a piece is longer than that, please record the piece in two files.

Our tech team will preview clips for technical quality, upload them to the BATC YouTube channel, and post them on our website and then on our Facebook page, for everyone to enjoy.

BATC plans to launch the Virtual Festival this Saturday, March 28, at 10 a.m., the time the original in-person Festival was scheduled to begin.

We will add new videos every day at 10 a.m., as long as submissions keep coming in. (Below are the Suzuki Strings of Madison performing during a past BATC.)

The BATC Board hopes this Virtual Festival gives local musicians an outlet for sharing their talent and passion with the warmly appreciative local community.

Live music nourishes the soul of performer and audience member alike, and the transcendent, life-giving joy woven into the music of Bach is something we need, now more than ever. (Below is a performance from last year’s Bach Around the Clock.)

For more information, go to: https://bachclock.com and https://www.facebook.com/batcmadison

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Classical music: The coronavirus forces the cancellation of Bach Around the Clock plus concerts by pianist Drew Petersen and violinist Gil Shaham. Other groups will wait and see. Read local and national overviews

March 13, 2020
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By Jacob Stockinger

The pandemic of the coronavirus (below, from by the federal Centers for Disease Control) has now put Wisconsin into a public health emergency, as declared Thursday morning by Gov. Tony Evers, and continues to take its toll on the local art scene – and does so very quickly.

Since yesterday, the threat posed by the coronavirus and COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of three more major musical events:

The biggest is the cancellation of Bach Around the Clock 2020 on Saturday, March 28.

BATC is the FREE annual event celebrating the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750). It runs for 12 hours, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., and offers dozens of performances by student, amateur and professional musicians.

A Saturday night concert and Sunday afternoon master class by up-and-coming pianist Drew Petersen (below) — for the Salon Piano Series at Farley’s House of Pianos– has been cancelled and postponed until the summer.

And the March 28 recital by violinist Gil Shaham (below) and pianist Akira Eguchi at the Wisconsin Union Theater has been cancelled

Some other major groups are taking a wait-and-see approach about cancelling events. They include: the Madison Opera, the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra.

You can read more about them, and about other local arts events, including pop music as well as museum openings and exhibitions, in a comprehensive overview by Michael Muckian in Isthmus: https://isthmus.com/news/news/coronavirus-impacts-arts-events/

And here is an excellent story from National Public Radio (NPR) about the national context of how the Coronavirus is impacting the arts across the U.S. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814992409/in-the-age-of-covid-19-event-cancellations-precipitate-a-large-economic-impact

DETAILS ABOUT POSTPONEMENTS AND REFUNDS

Here is the announcement from BATC artistic director Marika Fischer Hoyt (below):

“Dear friends and colleagues,

“We on the BATC board have been carefully monitoring this rapidly-developing situation: the exponentially increasing number of cases being diagnosed in the U.S., the recommendations from the medical community, and responses from other organizations large and small.

“After careful consideration, we have decided, regretfully, that the most responsible course of action is to cancel the BATC festival this March.

“We on the board are so grateful to the performers, hosts and donors, who have invested time, talent and resources in this year’s festival. Our hope is to reschedule for a date in the fall. Stand by for more information on that soon.

“But for now, we ask for your understanding.

“I hope, even though we can’t celebrate his music together on the March 28, that we will all find ways to enjoy Bach’s music this month.”

For more information, go to: https://bachclock.com and facebook.com/batcmadison

Here are details about the Drew Petersen cancellations:

“Sadly, we are postponing both the Drew Petersen concert on March 14 and his master class on March 15 until the summer.

“New dates for the concert and master class are yet to be determined. We will announce them via email, the Salon Piano Series website and on social media for the Salon Piano Series.

“We know you’ll understand that our concern for your health and well-being made this decision necessary.

“You may request a refund or keep your ticket for the concert in the summer. Everyone who bought a ticket will have one week after the announcement of the new concert date to request a refund.

“If you would like a refund immediately, please follow the instructions below. Please allow several business days for refunds to be processed.

Paper Tickets: If you have a paper ticket, please take a photo of your ticket and email the photo to cristofori@salonpianoseries.org

explaining that you would like a refund.

Online Tickets: “If the ticket is not part of a season ticket, call Brown Paper Tickets at 1-800-838-3006.

If your ticket is part of a season ticket, contact Salon Piano Series at 608-271-2626. Refunds for season ticket holders will be issued through Salon Piano Series by check, not through Brown Paper Tickets.

Tickets Ordered by Phone

If you purchased a ticket by phone, contact Salon Piano Series at 608 271-2626 to request a refund.

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: Acclaimed native son Kenneth Woods returns this weekend to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra. He talks to The Ear about what Madison meant to him and his international career

March 2, 2020
2 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

This weekend, native Madisonian Kenneth Woods (below) returns from his home in the UK to conduct three performances of the Madison Symphony Orchestra.

The concerts feature two MSO debuts: the prize-winning young Canadian violinist Blake Pouliot performing Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor; and the acclaimed guest conductor, Kenneth Woods, leading the orchestra for the MSO premiere of Haydn’s Symphony No. 96, “Miracle” plus Richard Strauss’ tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life).

Performances will be held in Overture Hall on Friday night, March 6, at 7:30 p.m.; Saturday night, March 7, at 8 p.m.; and Sunday afternoon, March 8, at 2:30 p.m.

Single tickets are $19-$95 each and are on sale now, along with discounted tickets, at: https://madisonsymphony.org/event/the-miracle/; through the Overture Center Box Office at 201 State Street; or by calling the Box Office at (608) 258-4141. Fees apply to online and phone sales.

You can view program notes for this concert online at http://bit.ly/msomar2020programnotes

A Prelude Discussion by Randal Swiggum will take place one hour before each concert.

Guest conductor Kenneth Woods is a busy and versatile musician. He is the Principal Conductor of the English Symphony Orchestra and the artistic director of both the Colorado MahlerFest and the Elgar Festival in England. (You can hear Woods conducting Carl Maria von Weber’s “Oberon” Overture in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

Woods has won accolades for rediscovering and recording the music of the Austrian-British composer Hans Gàl. Woods, who has played guitar in a rock band, is also a professional cellist who solos with orchestras and plays chamber music. He writes a respected blog. And he currently plays and records in the Briggs Piano Trio for Avie Records.

For much more information about Kenneth Woods, including his blog “A View From the Podium,” go to: https://kennethwoods.net/blog1/

Woods recently spoke via email to The Ear about what Madison has meant to him and to his international career.

How did living in Madison play a role in your decision to become a professional musician?

Madison offered me a chance to hear music at an early age. I was taken to watch a rehearsal of the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestra as a very young kid, maybe three or four years old. That made a huge impression on me, especially seeing the rehearsal process. Later, my parents took us to all the UW Symphony Orchestra concerts for years.

There’s really no reason not to take young kids to concerts! For me, a love of live music led to a love of recorded music, listening to records at home, and from there, to an interest in playing music as a kid.

We were lucky to have a very strong music program in the Madison public schools when I was growing up here. The orchestras at Memorial High School played some really impressive repertoire under Tom Buchhauser (below top, in a photo by Jon Harlow). The UW Summer Music Clinic made being a musician social – it was a great immersion with one’s peers.

Most important, however, was probably the Wisconsin Youth Symphony Orchestras (WYSO). Playing under Jim Smith (below bottom) was the most fantastic education in orchestral playing one could hope for. He and Tom are a big part of why I became a conductor.

Madison in those days wasn’t a super-pressurized scene, like one might encounter around the big pre-college programs in New York or LA. But what I might have missed in terms of conservatory-level instrumentalists in every corridor, one made up in terms of feeling like you could find your own path. By the time I was in high school, I pretty much knew music was that path.

How did your experiences in Madison help prepare you for that career?

I learned so much about rehearsing from Jim Smith. In his first year, we worked on Dvorak’s 8th Symphony pretty much all year. Every week, he opened our ears to new facets of the music. I’ve never forgotten that.

I went off to Indiana University to do my Bachelor’s degree, but returned to Madison for a Master’s, when I studied cello with UW-Madison professor Parry Karp (below top).

Those were wonderful years for me. I learned an enormous amount from Parry as both a cello teacher and chamber music coach (and especially as a person).

I played in fantastic chamber groups, did lots of wacky new music and had solo opportunities. UW Symphony Orchestra conductor David Becker (below bottom) even gave me my first meaningful chance to rehearse an orchestra when he had me take a couple of rehearsals on the Copland Clarinet Concerto.

And I played in both the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra. I came away from that time with both new skills and new confidence.

What does returning to your hometown to conduct the Madison Symphony Orchestra mean to you?

It’s both very exciting and a little surreal. Under the leadership of John DeMain (below top, in a photo by Greg Anderson), the MSO (below bottom, in a photo by Peter Rodgers) has come so far since the time I was in it. And the new hall is such a treasure for all of Wisconsin – it’s practically a different orchestra.

I still have many friends and former mentors in the orchestra and it’s going to be wonderful to see them all and make music together again after so long.

But it’s more than a homecoming. It’s a chance to celebrate where we’ve all been and what we’ve all done the last 20 years or so. My musical life has mostly been in the UK for a long time, so to re-connect with my musical roots here is rather magical.

What are your major current and upcoming projects?

The English Symphony Orchestra (below) represents the biggest chunk of my musical life. This year we’re celebrating Beethoven’s 250th birthday and the orchestra’s 40th anniversary.

The ESO has a special commitment to new and unknown music, and right now we’re in the midst of something called the 21st Century Symphony Project, which involves commissioning, premiering and recording nine new symphonies by diverse composers. It’s one of the most ambitious commissioning projects I’ve ever heard of, let alone been involved in.

I’m also excited about this year’s Colorado MahlerFest in Boulder, where we’re focusing on Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” this May, which will crown a week of music exploring themes of color and visual art with music by Wagner, Messiaen and British composer Philip Sawyers.

Is the MSO program special to you?

I must say that it was incredibly generous of John DeMain to offer me such a fantastic program. Not every music director is gentleman enough to let a guest have Ein Heldenleben.

What would you like the public to know about your approach to music and about the specific works by Haydn, Mendelssohn and Richard Strauss?

Haydn’s music is maybe the richest discovery of my adult life. I didn’t get it as a kid, largely because most performances I heard were so dull.

His music is so varied, and his personality so complex, one mustn’t try to reduce him down to a simplistic figure. The late symphonies, of which this is one of the finest, are inexhaustible sources of wisdom, beauty, humor and sanity.

The Mendelssohn is really an astonishing piece. I’ve probably conducted it as much as any piece of music, with so many different soloists, all of whom had hugely different temperaments, personalities, sounds and approaches.

I’ve played it with some of the greatest violinists in the world and with young students. Somehow, whoever is playing, it always leaves me, and the audience, smiling. I’m pretty sure we can continue that streak with Blake Pouliot (below, in a photo by Jeff Fasano).

The Strauss is a rich, personal, wise, funny and moving work. It’s always a challenge, particularly bringing out all the astonishing detail in the score, but it’s also a real joy to perform. If the Mendelssohn always leaves me smiling, the Strauss always leaves me smiling with a tear in my eye.

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Classical music: This Sunday afternoon at the Chazen Museum of Art, you can attend or live stream a FREE sampler of the upcoming Bach Around the Clock festival

February 29, 2020
2 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following announcement to post:

It’s March – time for Bach!

Every March, the 12-hour FREE Bach Around The Clock (BATC) festival (below top, the Suzuki Strings of Madison) takes place in Madison on a Saturday near the birthday of Johann Sebastian Bach (below bottom) on March 31, 1685.

This year BATC is on Saturday, March 28, from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. at St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, 1833 Regent Street.

And every year the Sunday Afternoon Live at the Chazen concert series invites BATC to send a representative sampling of musicians to perform at the UW-Madison’s Chazen Museum of Art on the first Sunday in March, giving the public a taste of the offerings from the festival.

This year the Chazen program on this Sunday – tomorrow, March 1 – features: the Madison Youth Viol Consort in four chorales; pianist Tim Adrianson (below top) playing the English Suite No. 6 in D Minor (you can hear Murray Perahia play the opening Prelude in the YouTube video at the bottom); violist Dierdre Buckley and pianist Ann Aschbacher playing the Gamba Sonata No. 1 in G Major; and BATC’s Ensemble-in-Residence, Sonata à Quattro (below bottom in a photo by Barry Lewis, attached), performing Cantata 209, Non sa che sia dolore (He knows not what sorrow is).

Doors at the Chazen Museum of Art’s Elvehjem Building open at noon, and the concert takes place from 12:30 to 2 p.m. in Brittingham Gallery No. 3.

Admission is free and open to the public, and the event will be live audio-streamed on the Chazen website.

Here is a link to the page on the Chazen website, with more information and the streaming portal:

https://www.chazen.wisc.edu/index.php?/events-calendar-demo/event/sunday-afternoon-live-at-the-chazen-3-1-20/

For more information about Bach Around the Clock, including the full and complete schedule of amateur and professional performances, go to: https://bachclock.com or facebook.com/batcmadison

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Classical music: The Ancora String Quartet will play several concerts of Beethoven and Randall Thompson over this coming weekend, including one at Olbrich Gardens on Friday night

February 5, 2020
2 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

The Ear has received the following information from the veteran Ancora String Quartet, which will play several performances of the same program over the coming weekend in several different cities.

Members of the Ancora String Quartet (below from left, in a photo by Barry Lewis), who also play with the Madison Symphony Orchestra and the Wisconsin Chamber Orchestra, are: violinists Wes Luke and Robin Ryan; violist Marika Fischer Hoyt; and cellist Benjamin Whitcomb.

RECITAL PROGRAM:

String Quartet No. 2 in G Major by Randall Thompson

String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, by Ludwig van Beethoven

CONCERT DATES:

Friday, Feb. 7, at noon

Interview with Wisconsin Public Radio host

Norman Gilliland on The Midday

WERN 88.7 FM

Friday, Feb.7, from 5 to 7 p.m.

Olbrich Botanical Gardens, Bolz Conservatory

3330 Atwood Ave., Madison

Tickets at the door: $5

Saturday, Feb. 8, at 7:30 p.m.

Park (“Freethinkers”) Hall

307 Polk Street, Sauk City

Tickets: $15 general, $12 children and seniors

Sunday, Feb. 9, at 2 p.m. (UPDATE: THIS CONCERT HAS BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO AN OUTBREAK OF ILLNESS AT CHAI POINT. IT WILL BE RESCHEDULED.)

Chai Point Retirement Community

1400 N. Prospect Ave., Milwaukee

Free and open to the public

PROGRAM NOTES:

The program opens with an unusual work, the String Quartet No. 2 in G Major, by American composer Randall Thompson (below). Better known for his choral music, Thompson wrote this quartet in 1967 to celebrate the 130th anniversary of the Harvard Musical Association.

The quartet is joyous and optimistic in character, with thoughtful and creative part-writing. The first movement brims with youthful energy, contained in smoothly flowing triplets.

The simple, graceful folk melody that opens the second movement continually reinvents itself in a set of charming variations. The third movement’s heartfelt tune expresses a deep content, setting up the finale, whose explosive energy erupts in a good-natured, light-hearted romp.

Beethoven (below) wrote the second piece on our program, the String Quartet in B-Flat Major, Op. 130, 141 years before the Thompson and many centuries beyond it in subtlety, sophistication, intellectual rigor and emotional depth.

With six movements and lasting 40 minutes, it is the composer’s longest piece of chamber music, and it stretches limits in other ways as well. The original work, completed in 1825, contained the Grosse Fuge (Great Fugue) but Beethoven replaced that in 1826 with the Finale Allegro, the last full-scale movement he completed before his death in 1827.

Op. 130 bristles with contrasts, and juxtapositions of extremes, on the micro-level to the macro-level, all contained in movements ranging from a short, gnarly Presto, to a graceful Poco Scherzo, to a lyrical, innocent Alla Danza Tedesco (In the Style of a German Dance), to the fabled Cavatina, which, Beethoven wrote, moved him to tears when he even thought about it. (You can hear the Cavatina in the YouTube video at the bottom.)

In performing Op. 130, the Ancora String Quartet tackles its 14th of the 16 Beethoven string quartets. The ASQ plans to perform Op. 59, No. 3, and Op. 131, in the summer and fall, to complete the Beethoven cycle in this, the Beethoven Year when we celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth.

For more information, go to: facebook.com/ancoraquartet and www.ancoraquartet.com

Posted in Classical music
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Classical music: The 7th annual Schubertiade at the UW-Madison is this Sunday afternoon and will explore the influence of Beethoven on Schubert

January 23, 2020
3 Comments

By Jacob Stockinger

This coming Sunday afternoon, Jan. 26, is the seventh annual UW Schubertiade – named after the evening gatherings of friends (below) where the composer Franz Schubert performed and premiered his own music.

This year’s theme, given that 2020 is the Beethoven Year, is the immense influence that the older Beethoven (below top) 1770-1827) had on the younger Schubert (below bottom, 1797-1828).

The event will begin with a pre-concert lecture by UW-Madison Professor of Musicology Margaret Butler at 2:15 p.m. in the Rehearsal Hall at the new Hamel Music Center, 740 University Avenue, next to the Chazen Museum of Art.

Then at 3 p.m. in the 330-seat Collins Recital Hall in the same building, the two-hour concert will take place.

The concert will close with the usual custom. The audience and performers will join in singing “An die Musik” (To Music). (In the YouTube video at the bottom, you can hear it sung by legendary German soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and legendary British accompanist Gerald Moore.)

A reception will follow the concert in the main lobby.

For more description of the event plus a complete program and list of performers – who consist of UW-Madison graduates and musicians including soprano Jamie Rose Guarrine (below top) and mezzo-soprano Alisanne Apple (below middle) as well as the Pro Arte Quartet (below bottom, in a photo by Rick Langer) – go to: https://www.music.wisc.edu/event/our-annual-schubertiade/

At the site, you will also find information about buying tickets – general admission is $20 with free student tickets on the day of the concert is space is available – and about parking.

The event was founded by and continues to be directed by wife-and-husband pianists Martha Fischer and Bill Lutes (below) who also sing, accompany and play works for piano, four hands.

Lutes sent the following introductory remarks: “Ever since Martha and I presented the first of our annual Schubertiades back in January 2014, we’ve looked for ways to keep our all-Schubert birthday parties fresh and interesting for our audience.

“From time to time we contemplated introducing another composer – maybe even switching our allegiance from the immortal Franz to another of our favorites: perhaps a “Schumanniade.”

“This time, with six years of all-Schubert behind us, we thought we would do the obvious and finally unite Schubert with the composer who probably meant more to him than almost any other – Beethoven, whose 250th birthday is being celebrated this year.

“Once Beethoven moved permanently to Vienna at age 22, he soon became famous and eventually was regarded as the greatest of the city’s composers.

“Schubert, who was born in Vienna five years after Beethoven’s arrival, grew up hearing the older master’s works, often at their premieres. As his genius flowered early, Schubert was often challenged and inspired by Beethoven’s music.

“We bring together these two giants who lived in the same city, knew the same people, attended the same musical events, perhaps met or quite possibly didn’t.

“Yet Beethoven’s presence and example guided Schubert in his own road toward the Ultimate Sublime in music. Our concert of “Influences and Homages” features works where the musical, if not the personal, relationship is there for all to hear.”

Lutes also supplied a list of the song titles in English translation:

“Ich liebe dich” – I love you

“Der Atlas” – Atlas

“Auf dem Strom” – On the River

“Der Zufriedene” – The Contented Man

“Der Wachtelschlag” – The Quail’s Cry

“Wonne der Wehmut” – Joy in Melancholy

“Kennst du das Land?” – Do You Know the Land?

“An die ferne Geliebte” – To the Distant Beloved

“An die Freude” – Ode to Joy

“Gruppe aus dem Tartarus” – Scene from Hades

“Elysium”

“Nachthymne” – Hymn to the Night

“Abendlied unterm gestirnten Himmel” – Evening Song Beneath the Starry Firmament

Have you attended a past Schubertiade (below, in Mills Hall)?

What did you think?

Would you recommend it to others?

The Ear wants to hear.

Posted in Classical music
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